My uncle Clay had an amazing machine in his barn – it shelled field corn. Manually driven by a hand crank, my uncle would drop in an ear of dried field corn. Immediately, a stream of kernels would emerge from a chute and drop into a bucket below the chute. When virtually all of the kernels had been stripped, the stripped cob would emerge from another chute, and drop into another bucket.

I was little kid when I last saw it, but here’s what I remember of it. There were two counter-rotating circular disks of steel or cast iron, on a common axis, each 2 or 3 feet in diameter, slightly conical. The apexes of the cones were, at most, an inch apart. The facing surfaces had many short protrusions to knock off the kernels.

Most of the mechanism was covered by sheet steel and castings, so I don’t know what else was in there. Whatever it was, I’m awed that it could retain the ear until nearly all of the kernels were stripped, then send the cob out a separate chute. An antique, but wonderful, machine.

I’m familiar with a smaller version of that. Clamped to a trough. It’s fascinating for the first 45 minutes. Then my arms were tired.

They can be quite pricy in the antique stores.

For homemade engineering, I was very taken with Granddads butter bean sheller. Mostly because I hated shelling the damn things. It was, alas, too rough with the product for Grandmas taste, so back to wash basins of butter beans and watching The Guiding Light in the hot afternoons.

I still hate butter beans.

--No matter where you go, there you are

I always prefer reality when I can figure out what it is.-- JALLEN 10/18/18

Grew up on small farm and my Dad had a corn mill where we ground both grits and corn bread. We had a sheller with a gas engine which my Dad would not let any of us touch until we were 12 or so to keep us from filleting our hands.

I was driving a tractor at 10 but could not use the sheller. When he was gone for any length of time he took the spark plug out.

That thing could do bushels of corn before you blinked your eyes. Shelled corn came off directly on conveyor belt to go to the grinder. There was metal divider on the conveyor you used to send to right stones.

Used one on the farm, amazingly fun though, like any other farm task becomes drudgery.

We'd then take the corn and run trough an old supermarket coffee mill on the coarsest setting to make cracked corn for our chicken feed.

Ours was all cast iron, after a while, when the handle cracked the local welder. He's was an elderly German fellow who left Germany when Hitler came to power, such an interesting man, stories of Weimar Germany were fascinating... I digress.

Originally posted by BillyBonesNY:Used one on the farm, amazingly fun though, like any other farm task becomes drudgery.

We'd then take the corn and run trough an old supermarket coffee mill on the coarsest setting to make cracked corn for our chicken feed.

Ours was all cast iron, after a while, when the handle cracked the local welder. He's was an elderly German fellow who left Germany when Hitler came to power, such an interesting man, stories of Weimar Germany were fascinating... I digress.

I always wanted to hook it up to an electric motor.It would have been much more fun.

Years ago I was at a Fl panhandle flea mkt and there was a farm market selling pecans. The background noise was a rhythmic thump, thump, thump. It was a belt driven contraption that cracked the pecans and then the cracked pecans were put in a lunch bag sized brown paper bag for retail. Sold like hotcakes and that machine was the key.

I’m familiar with a smaller version of that. Clamped to a trough. It’s fascinating for the first 45 minutes. Then my arms were tired.

They can be quite pricy in the antique stores.

For homemade engineering, I was very taken with Granddads butter bean sheller. Mostly because I hated shelling the damn things. It was, alas, too rough with the product for Grandmas taste, so back to wash basins of butter beans and watching The Guiding Light in the hot afternoons.

I still hate butter beans.

Holy cats! I did the same thing with my grandmother except it was Days of our Lives. She referred to the Soap Operas as "her shows".